What happened to the Mulholland "King of the Hill" RSR?
 

Chris Banning recently came out with a book entitled "the Mulholland Experience," all about the history of Mulholland racing and such. Pretty poorly written book, but some good stories, especially if you're... uhmmm... "familiar" with the road.

[***EDIT 02/27/2009*** - In the over two years it's been since I started this thread, I've actually gotten to know Banning personally. Let it be known now at the beginning of this epic thread that Banning has been working on a 2nd edition of the book with corrections and many additions to the tale. It promises to be the book that he originally intended to publish. Be on the lookout.]

Anyway, in the late 70's he built a hardcore Mulholland killer Porsche with a chopped roof (yes, chopped and it doesn't look stupid). He was I believe the last "King of the Hill" before the whole Mulholland racing thing was completely busted up.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1168285748.jpg
This is a picture from 1978. He lived right off Mulholland, and had to keep it in his living room because of helicopters and such (no garage one would guess).

DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS CAR?

I'm still trying to find the movie that had Harry Hamlin in a 356 Cab and Dennis Hopper in an old 'Vette.

King of the Mountain

Dave

Well... how much time you got?
Chris is still living off of Mulholland and still has the car. The car was modified to the short hood configuration around 1975. The top was chopped (and a lot of other body mods) by Arnie Verbiesen
Chris started buying RSR bits and pieces and got it to the point it is today

At one point (1974)while Arnie was building my first Porsche ( a 911E based targa) he was lagging behind and offered me this coupe instead- in its "original" Arnie built config: 1973 RSR in Steve Mc Queen slate grey with dual recaro sports, fuchs 9's and 11's, etc etc with my 2.4 cis motor installed. (yeah I know...)

As these cars were getting stolen a LOT at the time, i declined the offer since I was living in an apartment with no garage. Car would have had the shelf life of a carton of milk parked out in the open. Add in the sport muffler with no carpet and my wife (at that time) would have gone maybe two blocks before strangling me:rolleyes:

Still- i have to wonder what direction i might have gone if i had accepted it . (Maybe the bottom of the cliff off of mulholland?)

There are three VHS versions on E-Bay right now. Movie hasn't been released on DVD.

Cool! except for the dvd thing
:(

The Porsche RSR pictured above was the car to idolize during my H.S. days in L.A. It had a sort of cult following where every Monday after the weekend, gearheads would gather and ask if they'd seen who it beat on Mulholland the weekend before.

On Friday and Saturday nights, those fortunate enough to actually see Banning's RSR on Mulholland, would gather at Grandstands to see it scream through the sets. Maybe it was the pot, booze, and lust for the cute chicks who knew all the Van Halen and Foreigner songs by heart, not to mention the overheated Santa Ana winds, but that Porsche was so fast, I swear if you'd blink while hearing it race forth, when you opened your eyes again, it was gone.

I've been on a few Mulholland runs with Jack, Tyson, Dave B. and others, who are all very fast drivers. But to this day, I don't think I've seen anyone drive Eastern Mulholland from the Hollywood Freeway to Bel Air as fast as Banning. His speeds were, in my mind, certifiably suicidal, whether in the RSR or his early Z/28.

Apart from Banning, to be honest, Mulholland these days is a joke compared to what it used to be. The road's lore is gone, and few remember it. I find its loss as akin to the Red Car being ripped off the L.A. streets or the 19th century mansions on Bunker Hill being torn down to make way for Downtown L.A. skyscrapers; Mulholland now is just a windy, often congested road with a few good views of L.A. or The San Fernando Valley when the sky is clear. The street itself is busted and broken from use and heavy vehicles, and I think water corosion is occurring beneath its asphalt. Plus the fact Mulholland now gets bottled up like any other L.A. street.

I consider any performance car enthusiast lucky to have experienced Mulholland back when it was a stomping ground for guys like Chris Banning and Cort Wagner. I've even heard Carroll Shelby, who might still live in Bel Air, used to test his Dodge/Chrysler Shelby cars up there, just to see how they performed against Ferraris and Porsches.

All said, if you see 40 mph on Mulholland today, consider yourself lucky.

:(

I KNEW I should have just asked you, Dave!
So wait... he still has the car, and it still looks like that?
Do you still know him?
I have sort of a stupid fascination with this car.
Anyway... while you're here, are you going to be at TRE on Saturday?

derek

True for the most part, but one can still get the odd run in very early, with abundant caution...

or on new years day :D


Chris still has his car. Don't know if it even runs. With the abundance of wild machinery on L.A.'s roads these days, would it even merit a glance ?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1168301991.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1168302008.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1168302024.jpg

someone can tell chris the cops are no longer looking for him :)

Yes- we will be here this upcoming Saturday for clients picking up/ dropping off

i'm really just interested because i've heard about it so much. someone i work with used to race his 280Z up there at the same time chris was up there, so i'd heard all the wild porsche and "crazy charlie" (i think that's what he was called) with the beat up 427 vette and the weird gmc pickup... blah blah blah.

maybe he wants to sell it!

oh wait!
i'm way too tall.
i'd never fit in a chop top 911.

Charlie (RIP) was indeed pretty crazy. The more he drank, the faster he would drive- it was the weirdest NON - M.A. D. D. thing one could think of.

I had a mini cooper S with radials and was having some fun up there in the rain. Fancying myself as Paddy Hopkirk, another friend in his built up 510 (also on radials ) we're having a great time . Out of nowhere we hear what sounded like the entire A Production grid at Riverside raceway. Yep, Charlie was on straight pipes and making a run.... on 13" wide slicks no less. Uh, he went by us like we were tied to the proverbial pole. And even with some well timed drifts and more aggressive driving we were left in about 4 turns worth of road... in the rain

To me Charlie will always be King of the Mountain. I know there were faster cars around, but he could put it together like no one else

That's a great story!
I heard about his "drinking while RACING". Apparently, his little F-YOU to people he passed was to throw his just finished beer can out the window at them. Or the one-handed-drift-with-beer-can-in-the-other-hand style of driving.

Freakish!

Some guys I knew would hide their cars in empty garages of homes they didn't even know if the cops were chasing them. They'd just hole up for an hour or so, then leave gingerly when the coast was clear.

Imagine hiding your car in Jack Nicholson's garage, or on Marlon Brando's darkened driveway. LOL!

I have a copy I bought off Ebay...cost $30 you want it?

Yeah. Somebody tell Chris he can take his car out now. I wax nostalgic for days I never experienced... only through story.

Here is a real story: Tommy was one of the group of buddies in CRE (Clandestine Racing Enterprises) actually started as Crotch Racing Enterprises, but that is another story.
Tommy was very talented with his driving but short on $ (who wasn't?) He had a 1600 VW bug with reversed rear rims and decambered back there as well. With a Bursch muffler it probably made about 45-50 hp?

Anyway Tommy was flying solo one day up on the hill. He was having a great time going from West to East between Beverly Glen and Coldwater Cyn. As he passed the fire station there was a LAPD going the other way. Since Tommy has no driver license on him (too many infractions) he decided to high tail it. The cop did a u and started with the lights, then the siren. Tommy was driving his head off thru this tight but uphill section. The cop could drive fairly decent and in short order was gaining ground on the poor lil VW.
Tommy got some distance between them before Brando's house, but the cop regained it on the straightaway just before Coldwater.
"Aha, I will lose them over Franklin Canyon" Tommy thought. Franklin Canyon used to be partially paved, mostly dirt and wound its way down the hill into Beverly Hills.
And so Tommy did lose the cop just jamming down Franklin doing his best Ivan Stewart impression with the lil bug. Tommy was now worrying about the fact that a radio is faster than any car. So what to do? As he got back into the residential area of Frankin on the B.H. side, there was an open garage door. PERFECT! He jammed into it, got out and closed the door.
Here is the just rewards part: A car pulls up the the garage, the door opens. The owner of the house has returned home from shopping. "Please, please lady, please don't tell any..." and at that moment the LAPD slides up to ask "Hey Lady! Have you seen.. Hey YOU!!! Hold it right there, you are under arrest!"

Tommy had to pay restitution for the cop car's dented fenders, bumpers, and wheel damage suffered over Franklin. He spent some time in jail. He lost his license for a looong time.

Postscript. Tommy and another racing buddy Victor, took a Peugeot 505 to the best all time road racing victories in SSB SCCA Racing. They actually made money with it!

LOL!!!

Hilarious!

Was the color of that Bug white? I remember a white Bug that was pretty quick. Rumor had it a flat six was in it. I didn't even think you could a flat six in a Bug.

I just love these "back in the day stories" like this and about old restored 911's. Probably the main reason I read the BB.

Cheers

Dave . . . your stories are the best. I never had the chance to experience Mulholland in those days, so it's great to hear them now.

Encore Please . . .

Tom
Thousand Oaks, CA

P.S.

Good to see you again at the New Year's Run

Sure!! Paypal ok for you??

Yup. I'm loving these stories too. Keep 'em comin'! :)

"Was the color of that Bug white? I remember a white Bug that was pretty quick. Rumor had it a flat six was in it. I didn't even think you could a flat six in a Bug." dd74

Nope- dark faded blue. You may have been thinking of Rex' white swing axle bug on 13" spoked steel rims with radial t/a's (hottest tire of the period) . The itnerior was totally stripped except for 2 light baja bug fiberglass seats and some carpet.With Rex' magic engine building , a 2180 steel cranked , twin weber motor put out some serious power. Close ratio gear box , no camber compensator (where's your sense of adventure?), and doubled up stock front sway bars made the basic package.
Add in a cracked windshield : On the passenger side of course- you had to push on it everytime he went passed 80 mph (which was often) .
One could say that the ride was exhilarating - that in itself is an understatement.
He didn't hang around so much up there as he would run back and forth on occasion. Again something to do with lack of license from time to time. The current fast flavor of the summer was a J. Hall with a built up camaro and lots of cojones. Hall was doing "laps" back and forth in front of Grandstands when Rex came up behind him, passed him thru the sweeper on the downhill and just disappeared . Hall, needless to say , was flumoxed at his being dissed so publicly by this "humble " bug.

Dave, you're a good story teller. Has anyone ever told you that? You put me right there in the action.

Where the heck is "Grandstands"?

Grandstands is on the Valley side of the subtle S section as you go east on Mulholland from Coldwater. There's a lot of shrubs and such there now, and a little parking area for an overlook. That used to be all flat and empty, where everyone stood to watch the racing.

not completely empty- there was , and still is, a small hill that one could climb up to see all the action. Haven't hiked it lately, but there was also a fire road access behind it. We could park between 20-35 cars tightly in there with another 15-20 on bowmont

Hey Dave,
It would be interesting if that old 911 were back out. Of course, where would it be run today? Most of the wild looking 911 based cars are, frankly, a lot more show than go. GREAT looking but if you look hard enough a well developed edgy car will smoke them. Not intended as a put-down on them as they are great and wild looking but my experience is that almost always there are a LOT of relatively low key looking Porsches that are a lot faster/better. Just like the old hot rodding days where the owners get more opportunity to USE them without attracting all the attention.

Example: Your black 914-6. Yea, think about it if it is REALLY used.

I too am enjoying all this. Being NCal and in my wildest day, in the Monterey Peninsula, most of our driving were without witnesses. I can vouch that the Big Sur cliffs owned a great many fast sports cars and drivers in the period. I got offered more than one newish built Porsche... thoroughly trashed, after it was winched up off those cliffs. I didn't have much money either but it killed me to pass of a thoroughly bent but still driveable 6 month old 911 for $1500!

Please, more stories and history. Is that book actually good???

My best stories from Big Sur [that, and Jack's Peak- which used to be dangerous, challenging, and pure fun before it got all de-lovely paved with huge houses everywhere] have mostly been told elsewhere. For here tho.. a great hard run with a well known Cobra driver [me in my tweaked Stingray] and finally having to abort due to heavy fog rolling in but a nice brief chat and back to our sane lives... and then teaching my brother that my puny old Speedster could dust his modded FI Vette on that same road. [He bought his 911 a month later.] Most of the guys that ran hard were solo so there was no one to call for help if you went over. A lot of bodies were found a month or so later by hikers. Beautiful place and still neat but better paving, guard rails, and modern tires and cars have dilluted what used to be a shattering experience if you pushed it to the limit.

keep 'em coming!

JR

Re: What happened to the Mulholland "King of the Hill" RSR?
 

What you guys don't know is that the blurred out face on the left is in fact Dave Bouzaglou. He still owns those shorts and every once in a while when it's warm out he puts them on, leaves the beater at home and brings his 914-6 down to TRE wearing a nostalgic pair of gold-framed Porsche Design aviators and a pinky ring. True story.

:cool: :cool: :cool:

Just kidding Dave :)

Ok, so when is one of the gazillion writers on here going to do the interview and then photograph this car for EXCELLENCE?

I second that!

JR- you obviously have not been behind me on a fun run or the Iron Bottom Rally. The 6 has been, and will continue to be, REALLY used on the track and the street.
But in general you are somewhat correct, the bling factor out does the prep and driving capability with some of the cars. The ones posted above by me? I can assure you all have nice suspension set ups that I would be happy to have for a backroads or track toy. We like to see the bite match the bark

For the most part, the Hill lurkers that were really into competition , are in some form of motorsports or other to this day. From the Mulholland Racing Association (late 60's) I know of several of the guys that were quite competitive in SCCA, IMSA, etc. Some of them are in the auto related biz. The same applied to the CRE days and to some lesser extent the ACR and other following groups.
Obviously the majority of this stuff was illegal with all the speeding, crossing over the line, breaking into Willow in the middle of night (yeah- we got away with it- Sure is DARK with no moon and no lines to guage the track by. Though when we went back en masse for a clandestine race day when the track was closed on X mas day- we did get busted by the sheriffs. But I digress..
We had a LOT of fun over the years up there with no drugs, little alcohol (those that drank were shunned because of the danger they were posing- save Charlie; he could do whatever he wanted) Traffic was fairly light and mid summer nights were sublime with 70 degree weather, full moons, and an empty "track". Keeping your car prepped safely and properly was a big plus with the groups.

Chris's car? who knows? The car just might be the shizzle on the track. Other than the time it was prepped, I have not seen it since. Its a ghost in storage at his house. He did attend one POC time trial at Riverside, then decided the track was not for him. On the contrary for most of us up there- we couldn't wait to get on a track! (even clandestinely)

And Amir- that is NOT me in the above pic! I used to have a lot more hair when that shot was taken. though I do have a pair of those shorts ....

Dave,
So is Chris just keeping it for memories sake? I know to a lot of people, it's just some Porsche, but for others like myself it's a piece of history. I had actually heard stories about that car before getting the book (where the picture came from). And just knowing that it's still around, and up on Mulholland...

yeah, anyway.

I do like the idea of an Excellence piece on the car. See some pics of it now. Some sort of restoration project maybe. The way I see it, the Mulholland racing scene is quickly being forgotten about. One book (honestly, not well written), and one ****e movie from the 80's does not really do its history justice.

It would be nice to see its history remembered like any grand ol' race track of yesterday. The more ways to remember, the better.

O.K. Stupid question.

Probably really stupid...

Is is imopssible to sanction an event on a road like this?

They do it for all those events like the Silver State Classic.

Mulholland would be impossible now days... way too many houses, hit and miss road conditions, no runoff area except for down the side of a cliff...

In our late teens up there we would fantasize on how we could "organize" a race that encompassed all the cool roads , starting with Mulholland, so we could complete laps thru the hills. We even piled 8 of us into my dad's Fleetwood Brougham one nite to try an discover the secret passages.
After 2 hours of barnstorming the small streets in the Hollywood Hills, and two races later (Hey, what can I say? if it has wheels on it ...) we determined that Sunset Blvd could not be used for our version of the Targa Hollywood

Dad always wondered why he had to replace pads and front tires on the Caddy so often. The dealership blamed it on the Konis I had installed up front < set on full stiff. Thanks service writer :D

is the movie any good? if its anything like you guys are saying it was in real life. it deinatly would be somthing to see

Fantastic stories. Cup, have you ever thought about writing a collection of stories?

He really should. We could hold interview sessions at 4 n 20 Pies (favorite pre-race hangout)!